Connected Places

The United Kingdom is a maritime nation. Our ports have long been hubs connecting Britain to the rest of the world. Yet if we think of ports as under-utilised hubs of innovation, things start to get exciting!

Whether it’s 5G, autonomous systems, or net zero infrastructure, our ports can foster diverse innovation ecosystems. They can also be powerful engines of regional growth, as well as gateways to new global markets and routes to foreign direct investment.

With the right vision and imagination, we have the tools and capabilities to write a new and exciting chapter in Britain’s maritime story.

This episode features a special guest, David Shukman, the BBC’s former Science Editor, who’s reported from around the world on climate change and the environment for 30 years.

We also meet some of the innovators and port operators who are writing that new maritime story, like Bob Sanguinetti, CEO of Aberdeen Harbour and Nolan Gray, Freeport Director at Tees Valley Combined Authority. We hear from Anna Ziou, Policy Director at the UK Chamber of Shipping, as well as Mark Wharton and Sophie Peachy from IOTICS, a UK company specialising in data and digital twin technology.

Music on this episode is by Blue Dot Sessions and Phill Ward Music (www.phillward.com)

Show notes:

To find out more about our Clean Maritime Demonstrator project in Aberdeen, click here.

To learn more about our work on the future of the UK’s Freeports, click here.

To learn about how our ports are increasing being seen as hubs of clean energy and innovation, click here.

To download our report on Hubs of Innovation, click here, and you can also read our playbook for place leaders by clicking here.

And to register for the Maritime Innovation Week, which the Catapult is participating in as part of London Innovation Week from 13th-17th June, click here.

If you'd like to get in touch with your feedback, comments and suggestions on what you'd like to hear more of on Connected Places, please email: podcast@cp.catapult.org.uk.

We’re looking forward to hearing from you!

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Don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Please also take a moment to write a review and rate us so that more people can hear about the podcast and what we do at Connected Places Catapult.

The UK has a powerful story to tell when it comes to regenerating our towns and cities in the wake of industrial decline. We haven’t always got it right, and yet we’ve learned a lot along the way. So as we face the daunting task of decarbonising our entire built environment, what lessons can we glean from the real estate and property sectors? What does the road ahead look like in this current moment of profound disruption? And where might the opportunities lie for investment in new technologies and the connected places of tomorrow?

Our guest on this episode is Liz Peace CBE, who has 35 years’ experience in government and the property sector. Liz spent her early career in the Ministry of Defence before moving into the property sector and becoming Chief Executive of the British Property Federation (BPF). Liz retired from the BPF at the end of 2014. Among many other roles, she Chairs the Architectural Heritage Fund and Real Estate Balance - the property industry’s leading diversity organisation - as well as the Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation, and the Sponsor Board for the Palace of Westminster Restoration and Renewal Programme.

She also serves as a non-executive Board Member at the Connected Places Catapult. 

Music on this episode is by Blue Dot Sessions and Phill Ward Music (www.phillward.com)

Show notes:

To register for our Integrated Place Planning for Net Zero event on 11 May, click here.

To be part of our inaugural Connected Skies event at the British Science Museum in London, on 17/18th May, click here.

If you'd like to get in touch with your feedback, comments and suggestions on what you'd like to hear more of on Connected Places, please email: podcast@cp.catapult.org.uk. We’re looking forward to hearing from you!

To find out more about what we do at the Connected Places Catapult and to hear about the latest news, events and announcements, please sign up to our newsletter!

Follow the show!

Don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Please also take a moment to write a review and rate us so that more people can hear about the podcast and what we do at Connected Places Catapult. 

Brazil is a vast country with 16% of the world’s fresh water and home to most of the Amazon Rainforest – often referred to as the lungs of the planet. But the frontline of the climate crisis in Brazil is not only protecting its forests, important of course as they are.

The fight is also being fought in Brazil’s cities. Like Sao Paulo - the 4th largest city in the world. In fact, Sao Paulo isn’t just a city. It’s a state that’s home to around 20% of the Brazilian population. 

In this episode, we visit Brazil to hear about the innovation economy from the President of Invest Sao Paulo, Gustavo Junquiera. And we hear how a company in Sao Paulo, and a company in Cambridge, here in the UK, are tackling climate change together. Dr. Thomas Martin, Founder of MeteoIA and Dr. Jessica Ocampos-Colina, Founder of CamNexus are using artificial intelligence and sensing technology to anticipate and plan for climate-related challenges in Sao Paulo’s water supply and distribution network.

Their collaboration has been made possible by the Catapult’s Latin America Net Zero Challenges project, which is being delivered in partnership with Invest Sao Paulo and IdeiaGov, and with the support of the UK Government’s Science & Innovation Network.

Music on this episode is by Blue Dot Sessions and Phill Ward Music (www.phillward.com)

Show notes:

If you'd like to get in touch with your feedback, comments and suggestions on what you'd like to hear more of on Connected Places, please email: podcast@cp.catapult.org.uk. We’re looking forward to hearing from you!

To find out more about what we do at the Connected Places Catapult and to hear about the latest news, events and announcements, please sign up to our newsletter!

Follow the show!

Don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Please also take a moment to write a review and rate us so that more people can hear about the podcast and what we do at Connected Places Catapult. 

Are you one of the 14 million people in the UK with some form of disability? Or do you know someone who lives with a disability? Then you’ll probably know how hard it can be to use public transport - whether it’s getting on and off a bus, or navigating the complex, stressful and often-confusing environment of a train station.

We’re working with innovators to find solutions that will make it easier for people to live active lives. In this episode of the Connected Places Podcast we speak to some of those innovators about how artificial intelligence, gaming and sensing technology is revolutionising how we get from A to B.

It’s all part of the UK Government’s Inclusive Transport Strategy and the Department for Transport (DfT) is working with technology companies to help find the products and services that could make a real difference in people’s lives by removing barriers to travel for people with additional needs.

One of the programmes it’s using is called a Transport Research and Innovation Grant (TRIG). It’s a way of funding proof of concept research projects that are all about not just improving the UK’s transport system, but helping to grow businesses and the wider economy.

And the Catapult’s role in this?

As part of our strategic partnership with DfT we’re providing wrap around support to government and business, to make sure that the good ideas that come out of these grants don’t fail for the wrong reasons.

In this episode we meet some of the companies who participated in the 2021 Accessibility TRIG (formally known as A-TRIG) and what they got out of the programme. We speak to Chris Thompson, CEO of You.Smart.Thing, Fredi Nonyelu, CEO of Brite Yellow, Mark Robinson, Founder of Chrome Angel, as well as Christine Hemphill, Managing Director of the inclusive research consultancy, Open Inclusion, and the Catapult’s SME Development Programme Lead, Rebecca Goulding.

Music on this episode is by Blue Dot Sessions and Phill Ward Music (www.phillward.com)

Show notes:

If you'd like to get in touch with your feedback, comments and suggestions on what you'd like to hear more of on Connected Places, please email: podcast@cp.catapult.org.uk. We’re looking forward to hearing from you!

To find out more about what we do at the Connected Places Catapult and to hear about the latest news, events and announcements, please sign up to our newsletter!

Follow the show!

Don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Please also take a moment to write a review and rate us so that more people can hear about the podcast and what we do at Connected Places Catapult. 

It’s been another eventful year at the Connected Places Catapult and we’ve got a lot to look back on as the year draws to a close!

We’ve had some great conversations with thought leaders across government, business, cities and industry - from London to Mexico City to New York. We’ve brought you news from our ground-breaking events on active travel, the innovation economy and the UK Cities Climate Investment Commission. And of course, when it comes to harnessing the business opportunities that come from technology and innovations that are shaping the connected, sustainable and low carbon places of tomorrow, we were excited to be at the summit of summits – the UN’s COP26 Climate Summit in Glasgow.

In this episode we take a look back at the people and stories we covered in 2021, and we cast an eye to what 2022 has in store for the Connected Places Podcast.

Music on this episode is by Blue Dot Sessions and Phill Ward Music (www.phillward.com)

Show notes:

If you'd like to get in touch with your feedback, comments and suggestions on what you'd like to hear more of on Connected Places, please email: podcast@cp.catapult.org.uk. We’re looking forward to hearing from you!

To find out more about what we do at the Connected Places Catapult and to hear about the latest news, events and announcements, please sign up to our newsletter!

Follow the show!

Don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Please also take a moment to write a review and rate us so that more people can hear about the podcast and what we do at Connected Places Catapult. 

Back in the summer of this year, the UK Government launched its Innovation Strategy which set out how the UK plans to become a global hub for innovation over the coming years. It recognised the critical role that place-based innovation is going to play on that journey.

One of the many things that place leaders need to take into account is not just how successful that economy is in monetary terms, but also how inclusive it is in societal terms. How can the innovation economy benefit everyone is a question we’re interested in at the Catapult and earlier this year we announced a new Research Commission on Inclusive Innovation which is going to be getting under the bonnet of some of these issues, and identifying some of the best practice that’s already emerging from across the UK.

Our guest on this episode is Claudette Forbes who’s held a number of senior roles across local and regional government, including the London Development Agency where she led a £125m London-wide regeneration programme. She’s also led numerous city development, economic development, and holistic local area regeneration programmes and she’s a strategic adviser to local authorities, government, non-profits across the UK. 

Claudette grew up in an inner-city area which was regenerated following race riots in the early 1980s, and she’s passionate about combating poverty and deprivation in urban areas. 

She’s a faculty member of the Whitehall & Industry Group and she currently holds a number of Non-Executive Director positions including the Future of London, and the Connected Places Catapult. 

Music on this episode is by Blue Dot Sessions and Phill Ward Music (www.phillward.com)

Show notes:

If you'd like to get in touch with your feedback, comments and suggestions on what you'd like to hear more of on Connected Places, please email: podcast@cp.catapult.org.uk. We’re looking forward to hearing from you!

If you’re interested in working on the Connected Places Podcast you can find out more about our Media Production Assistant role and how to apply here. Applications close 14th December 2021.

To find out more about what we do at the Connected Places Catapult and to hear about the latest news, events and announcements, please sign up to our newsletter!

Follow the show!

Don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Please also take a moment to write a review and rate us so that more people can hear about the podcast and what we do at Connected Places Catapult. 

How we design, build and invest in infrastructure is at the heart of how we’ll decarbonise our economies, as well as harness the opportunities of the fourth industrial revolution. The coming decade is set to be the most consequential in living memory for infrastructure investment, especially for new, low carbon technologies and the industries of the future as we repivot our economies towards new zero.

In this episode we look at what this means for those larger connectivity projects like ports, airports and critical rail infrastructure? What’s the role of government and industry. Where do public and private sector responsibilities lie? And how is the Connected Places Catapult playing a role in enabling new innovation and business growth? Prof. Greg Clark CBE, Chair of the Connected Places Catapult speaks to Dr. Nelson Ogunshakin, CEO of the International Federation of Consulting Engineers (FIDIC) headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.

Dr. Ogunshakin has more than 30 years’ experience in planning, finance, delivery and managing major property and infrastructure investment projects around the world. He’s also a board member of Transport for London, and he was previously a board member of Crossrail Limited as well as chair of the Investment Committee on the new £18 billion East-West Rail development in London. Among other leadership roles, Nelson is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and a Non-Executive Board member of the Connected Places Catapult.

Music on this episode is by Blue Dot Sessions and Phill Ward Music (www.phillward.com)

Show notes:

If you'd like to get in touch with your feedback, comments and suggestions on what you'd like to hear more of on Connected Places, please email: podcast@cp.catapult.org.uk. We’re looking forward to hearing from you!

To read and download the Catapult’s Net Zero Places Innovation Brief, which explores a number of new market opportunities in the active travel sector, click here.

To register for our upcoming event, ‘Getting to Net Zero locally – a practical tool for local authorities’ in partnership with OnePlanet, please click here.

To register for our ‘Innovate at HS2: Net Zero & Safety Demo Day’ which is showcasing disruptive, scalable technologies in the designing and building of railways, click here.

To find out more about what we do at the Connected Places Catapult and to hear about the latest news, events and announcements, please sign up to our newsletter!

Follow the show!

Don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Please also take a moment to write a review and rate us so that more people can hear about the podcast and what we do at Connected Places Catapult. 

Why has the Catapult been at the UN’s COP26 Climate Summit in Glasgow? Because so much of what was discussed, planned and negotiated in Glasgow had everything to do with cities, how we think about place, and how we imagine, design, build and finance places that are not just liveable, but also low carbon and sustainable.

One of the big questions we’ve been tackling is How can cities strengthen their business cases for net zero investment? And if their plans are brought together and aligned in a new and creative ways, could they generate greater scale, volume and predictability in ways that might make them more attractive to investors?

To answer this, the Connected Places Catapult has teamed up with the UK’s Core Cities and London Councils to create the UK Cities Climate Investment Commission. The aim is to the leverage the combined scale and clout of the UK’s cities to mobilise investment into low and net-zero carbon projects across all of the UK’s largest cities, not just individual ones. In the lead up to COP26 we published our City Investment Analysis Report and Glasgow has been an invaluable opportunity engage with businesses and the investment community.

In part I of ‘Live from COP26’ we heard from a number of voices from across the financial industry, including two of the UK’s leading banks and two new banks in Britain’s financial infrastructure. In part II we hear from Mayors and civic leaders from across the UK and what the challenge and the opportunity of net zero infrastructure means for places.

We also take some time to reflect on some of the other conversations that the Catapult has been having at COP26 with technology companies, asset owners and other place leaders.

Music on this episode is by Blue Dot Sessions and Phill Ward Music (www.phillward.com)

Show notes:

You can read the Joint Declaration of the UK Cities Climate Investment Commission on our website, as well as our City Investment Analysis Report. You can also listen to the first podcast we did to introduce the Commission, as well as a follow episode on decarbonising transport in cities.

To read and download the Catapult’s Net Zero Places Innovation Brief, which explores a number of new market opportunities in the active travel sector, click here.

If you'd like to get in touch with your feedback, comments and suggestions on what you'd like to hear more of on Connected Places, please email: podcast@cp.catapult.org.uk. We’re looking forward to hearing from you!

To find out more about what we do at the Connected Places Catapult and to hear about the latest news, events and announcements, please sign up to our newsletter!

Follow the show!

Don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Please also take a moment to write a review and rate us so that more people can hear about the podcast and what we do at Connected Places Catapult. 

So why has the Connected Places Catapult been at the UN’s COP26 Climate Summit in Glasgow? Well, because so much of what’s being discussed, planned and negotiated here in Glasgow has everything to do with cities, how we think about place, and how we imagine, design, build and finance places that are liveable, sustainable, low carbon and fit for the 21st Century. 

One of the big questions we’ve been tackling is How can cities strengthen their business cases for net zero investment? And if their plans are brought together and aligned in a new and creative ways, could they generate greater scale, volume and predictability in ways that might make them more attractive to investors?

To answer this, the Connected Places Catapult has teamed up with the UK’s Core Cities and London Councils to create the UK Cities Climate Investment Commission. The aim is to the leverage the combined scale and clout of the UK’s cities to mobilise investment into low and net-zero carbon projects across all of the UK’s largest cities, not just individual ones. In the lead up to COP26 we published our City Investment Analysis Report and Glasgow has been an invaluable opportunity engage with businesses and the investment community.

In this episode we present some highlights from the events and conversations we’ve been convening at COP26. We hear from;

• Prof. Greg Clark, Chair of the UK Cities Climate Investment Commission
• Cllr Susan Aitken, Leader of Glasgow City Council
• John Flint, CEO of the UK Investment Bank
• Ian Stuart, CEO of HSBC UK
• Carl Ennis, CEO of Siemens
• Elsa Palanza, Global Head of Sustainability & ESG, Barclays
• Susan Campbell, Investment Director for Sustainable Investment, Scottish National Investment Bank
• Stephen Pegge, Managing Director for Commercial Finance, UK Finance

Music on this episode is by Blue Dot Sessions and Phill Ward Music (www.phillward.com)

Show notes:

You can read the Joint Declaration of the UK Cities Climate Investment Commission on our website, as well as our City Investment Analysis Report. You can also listen to the first podcast we did to introduce the Commission, as well as a follow episode on decarbonising transport in cities.

To read and download the Catapult’s Net Zero Places Innovation Brief, which explores a number of new market opportunities in the active travel sector, click here.

If you'd like to get in touch with your feedback, comments and suggestions on what you'd like to hear more of on Connected Places, please email: podcast@cp.catapult.org.uk. We’re looking forward to hearing from you!

To find out more about what we do at the Connected Places Catapult and to hear about the latest news, events and announcements, please sign up to our newsletter!

Follow the show!

Don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Please also take a moment to write a review and rate us so that more people can hear about the podcast and what we do at Connected Places Catapult. 

In this episode we bring you some of the highlights from our Active Travel Summit, which we held on 29th September, and what the road ahead looks like for collaboration, R&D, and commercialising innovation in this exciting and growing sector. The summit was a space to explore with innovators, city leaders, transport authorities, active travel commissioners, central government, business leaders and world-leading academics, how Britain can unlock the full potential of active travel to power the shift to healthy, net zero mobility. 

Active travel is one of the most exciting areas of growth and opportunity within urban mobility - the kind of getting from A to B where your legs, arms and heart have to do their fair share of the work, rather than an energy consuming machine.

When we think about what more active travel in places means, it’s about creating options for us to move more. This can have a massive impact on our physical and mental health, the air quality in our overly congested cities by getting more commuters out of cars and onto bikes and footpaths, and the UK’s collective effort of achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050. But active travel is also about seizing a potentially huge economic opportunity!

Music on this episode is by Blue Dot Sessions and Phill Ward Music (www.phillward.com)

Follow the show!

Don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Spotify and Google Podcasts. Please also take a moment to write a review and rate us so that more people can hear about the podcast and what we do at Connected Places Catapult. 

Show notes

You can click on these links to read the two UK government reports that are referenced in the episode – Gear Change: A Bold Vision for Cycling and Transport, and Decarbonising Transport: Setting The Challenge.

To read and download our Net Zero Places Innovation Brief, which explores a number of new market opportunities in the active travel sector, click here.

You can also read and download free of charge the Catapult’s new report on Hubs of Innovation which looks at the role of districts, corridors and quarters as hubs in the COVID-adjusted economy, as well as the accompanying Playbook for Place Leaders, a practical guide for establishing or growing an innovation hub.

To find out more about what we do at the Connected Places Catapult and to hear about the latest news, events and announcements, please sign up to our newsletter!

The innovation economy has become one of the defining features of the economic cycle, especially the role of innovation in the post-pandemic recovery and the wider ‘levelling up’ agenda. Yet there are stark differences between the innovation activity in different parts of the UK, and there is renewed focus on enabling the innovation economy to flourish right across the country.

On 23 September the Catapult hosted the UK’s first Innovation Places Summit which brought together place leaders, businesses, researchers, policy makers and innovators from across Britain and around the world. The summit was the first of its kind and it explored some of the key questions facing business and place leaders in the innovation economy; how can innovation locations help to leverage foreign direct investment; how can we democratise innovation; how can we support SMEs; and how do existing hubs build on strong foundations and maintain momentum over time?

This episode is a whistle-stop world tour of some of the places of innovation from across the UK and around the globe that we heard from at the summit; from New York to Sydney, from Tel Aviv to Mexico City, we explore what it takes for a place to become a hotbed of innovation.

Music on this episode is by Blue Dot Sessions and Phill Ward Music (www.phillward.com)

Follow the show!

Don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Spotify and Google Podcasts. Please also take a moment to write a review and rate us so that more people can hear about the podcast and what we do at Connected Places Catapult. 

Show notes

Our Hubs of Innovation podcast series comes out of two reports that the Catapult recently published, 1) Hubs of Innovation which looks at the role of innovation hubs in the COVID-adjusted economy, and 2) the accompanying Playbook for Place Leaders, a practical guide for how to establish or grow an innovation hub. Both reports are free to download on our website.

On Monday 5th October we’ll be running an event looking at how innovation procurement can drive new local transport services. Click here to register.

On Thursday 7th October is our Transport Innovation Expo where we’ll be celebrating early stage innovation in the transport sector. Click here to register.

Then on Thursday 21st October the UK Cities Climate Investment Commission will present its findings on the up-front investment needed to address the Net Zero pledges in London and across the UK’s Core Cities. Click here to register.

How can cities strengthen their business cases for net zero investment? And if their plans are brought together and aligned in a new and creative ways, could they generate greater scale, volume and predictability in ways that might make them more attractive to investors?

To answer these and other questions, the Connected Places Catapult has teamed up with the UK’s Core Cities and London Councils to create the UK Cities Climate Investment Commission. The aim is to the leverage the combined scale and clout of the UK’s cities to mobilise investment into low and net-zero carbon projects across all of the UK’s largest cities, not just individual ones.

As an initial step we have commissioned research to assess and analyse the low carbon investment that cities need, and the associated investment cases. The findings of the report will be launched at the COP26 Climate Summit in Glasgow and will look at the following sectors; commercial and industrial property, waste and electricity generation, and transport.

In this episode we take a look at transport, which contributes almost a quarter (22%) of the UK’s green house gas emissions. There are of course different modes of transport – cars, buses, lorries, trains – and they each contribute emissions in different ways too. In a UK context you also have to bear in mind that local authorities have limited impact on most of those modes, and zero impact on some.

So the Commission has been focussing on where councils can have the most impact through policy and investment:

1. Reducing the need to travel.
2. Increasing the use of public transport
3. Increasing the uptake of active travel - walking, cycling
4. Converting from fossil fuelled to electrified forms of transport

Prof. Greg Clark, who chairs the Commission, speaks to Cllr Susan Aitken, Leader of Glasgow City Council about what this looks like from the perspective of one of the UK’s core cities. We also meet Andrea Fernandez, Managing Director of C40 Cities Climate Leadership and specialist in climate finance in cities, as well as Asif Ghafoor, CEO of Iduna, a company playing a leading role in Greater Manchester’s electric vehicle charging infrastructure.

Music on this episode is by Blue Dot Sessions and Phill Ward Music (www.phillward.com)

Show notes:

To read the Joint Declaration of the UK Cities Climate Investment Commission on our website. You can also watch a recording of the launch of the Commission, which was held on 1st July, which included a presentation on the initial findings of the research report.

To read and download the Catapult’s Net Zero Places Innovation Brief, which explores a number of new market opportunities in the active travel sector, click here.

To register for our Pathway to Net Zero Investment event on the 21st October, where the UK Cities Climate Investment Commission will be presenting its findings, click here.

You can also learn more about the organisations featured on this episode;

• Iduna – a UK infrastructure company specialising in mobility, telecoms and energy.
• EV. – Iduna’s electric vehicle charging company which operates Greater Manchester’s largest EV charging network.
• C40 Cities – a network of 100 megacities committed to addressing climate change.
• City of Glasgow’s plans to host the UN’s COP26 Climate Summit from 31 October – 12 November 2021.

If you'd like to get in touch with your feedback, comments and suggestions on what you'd like to hear more of on Connected Places, please email: podcast@cp.catapult.org.uk. We’re looking forward to hearing from you!

To find out more about what we do at the Connected Places Catapult and to hear about the latest news, events and announcements, please sign up to our newsletter!

Follow the show!

Don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Please also take a moment to write a review and rate us so that more people can hear about the podcast and what we do at Connected Places Catapult. 

In this instalment of our City Leader’s dialogues, “The net zero road to COP26 and beyond”, we speak to Marvin Rees, Mayor of Bristol; the largest city in the south west of England and a hotbed of innovation, creativity and discovery going back centuries.

Before the industrial revolution catapulted cities like Manchester and Liverpool to prominence, Bristol was Britain’s third most prosperous city and throughout the 19th and 20th Centuries it remained a key trading gateway to the wider world. To this day Bristol remains a uniquely global city with cosmopolitan connectivity and dynamism in its DNA. In more recent years its innovation and technology economy has shaped what’s come to be known as Silicon Gorge – comprising the wider regional economies of Bristol, Swindon, Gloucester and Bath, now ranked as the fifth largest high-tech region in Europe. Behind London, Bristol is now the fourth most popular city for startups in the UK.

Yet this globally-minded city also has a reputation as a progressive city where activism on the legacy of colonialism and slavery through to social justice, urban sustainability and tackling climate change have shaped its civic culture. So in this fourth episode in our City Leaders dialogues that we’ve been holding in the run up to the COP 26 Climate Change Summit in Glasgow this November, Prof. Greg Clark speaks to Mayor Marvin Rees. He asked him how Bristol is positioning itself for the monumental changes ahead; both the challenge of achieving net zero, and the opportunities that innovation and digitisation are bringing to the city? And what does a fair and just transition to net zero look like for a city with some of the highest levels in England of both wealth and deprivation?

This conversation was recorded live as part of our City Leaders Dialogue and you can watch the full video here.

Music on this episode is by Blue Dot Sessions and Phill Ward Music (www.phillward.com)

Show notes:

To read more about the UK Cities Climate Investment Commission, founded by the Connected Places Catapult, London Councils and Core Cities, click here.

To learn more about the work of the Coalition for Urban Transitions, click here.

You can also register for our Innovation Places Summit on 23rd September, as well as our Active Travel Summit on 29th September.

If you'd like to get in touch with your feedback, comments and suggestions on what you'd like to hear more of on Connected Places, please email: podcast@cp.catapult.org.uk. We’re looking forward to hearing from you!

To find out more about what we do at the Connected Places Catapult and to hear about the latest news, events and announcements, please sign up to our newsletter!

Follow the show!

Don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Please also take a moment to write a review and rate us so that more people can hear about the podcast and what we do at Connected Places Catapult. 

In this instalment of our City Leader’s dialogues, “The net zero road to COP26 and beyond”, we speak to Jan Vapaavpouri, former Mayor of Helsinki; the world’s northern most city region with over a million people and the most northerly capital in Europe.

Helsinki is often referred to as Finland’s only metropolis, the Pearl of the Baltic sea, and after Stockholm and Oslo it’s the third largest in the Nordic countries. Famously, Helsinki has one of the world’s highest standards of living and consistently ranks among the world’s most liveable cities. In July this year Time magazine ranked Helsinki as one of the greatest places in the world in 2021 and the Boston Consulting Group ranked it as the third best city in the world to live, behind New York and London.

Yet Finland urbanised quite late compared to most European cities with the population tripling since the 1970’s and the arrival of the subway system the same decade. In recent years the city has become a world leader not only in public health and wellbeing, but also environmental sustainability and digital innovation. And now, as cities around the world are adapting to a rapidly changing global climate Helsinki, like most other large cities, has a suite of ambitious plans to reduce carbon emissions and achieve net zero by 2035. Yet Jan Vapaavpouri has attracted a lot of attention for his vision of simply making Helsinki ‘functional’.

So in this third episode in our City Leaders dialogues that we’ve been holding in the run up to the COP 26 Climate Change Summit in Glasgow this November, Prof. Greg Clark met the Mayor of Helsinki as he prepared to leave office. He asked the Mayor how Helsinki is positioning itself for the monumental changes ahead; both the challenge of achieving net zero, but also the opportunities that digitisation is bringing to the city? How should the political leadership of a city bring people along with it? And is the intention to become a ‘functional’ city a bland sounding slogan, or surprisingly compelling vision?

This conversation was recorded live as part of our City Leaders Dialogue and you can watch the full video here.

Music on this episode is by Blue Dot Sessions and Phill Ward Music (www.phillward.com)

Show notes:

To read our CEO’s recent blog on the role that innovation hubs can play in accelerating the UK Government’s ambition to level up the economy, click here.

You can register for the live City Leader Dialogues with the Mayor of Bristol, Mayor Marvin Rees on 7th September.

You can also register for our Innovation Places Summit on 23rd September, as well as our Active Travel Summit on 29th September.

If you'd like to get in touch with your feedback, comments and suggestions on what you'd like to hear more of on Connected Places, please email: podcast@cp.catapult.org.uk. We’re looking forward to hearing from you!

To find out more about what we do at the Connected Places Catapult and to hear about the latest news, events and announcements, please sign up to our newsletter!

Follow the show!

Don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Please also take a moment to write a review and rate us so that more people can hear about the podcast and what we do at Connected Places Catapult. 

In recent months we’ve been exploring one of the most exciting areas of growth and opportunity within urban mobility, and why it matters so much to the Connected Places Catapult, and the future of healthy, connected and net zero places.

Active travel is about creating options for us to move more. This can have a massive impact on our physical and mental health, the air quality in our overly congested cities by getting more commuters out of cars and onto bikes and footpaths, and the UK’s collective effort of achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

In this third episode in our active travel podcast series we continue the conversation with businesses, place leaders and campaigners for better and more active travel. We ask what seizing this potentially huge opportunity might look and feel like on our streets and in our neighbourhoods. How do we design our public spaces for more active travel? How do we ensure that change is accessible to everyone? And what are the gaps in our existing knowledge base when it comes to understanding even the current market?

In this episode we hear from Prof. Rachel Aldred, Director of the Active Travel Academy at the University of Westminster, Susan Claris, Associate Director at Arup and Vice President of Living Streets, Isabelle Clement, Director of Wheels for Wellbeing, and Ben Knowles, CEO of Pedal Me.

Music on this episode is by Blue Dot Sessions and Phill Ward Music (www.phillward.com)

Follow the show!

Don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Spotify and Google Podcasts. Please also take a moment to write a review and rate us so that more people can hear about the podcast and what we do at Connected Places Catapult. 

Show notes

Register now for our Active Travel Summit on 29th September!

You can click on these links to read the two UK government reports that are referenced in the episode – Gear Change: A Bold Vision for Cycling and Transport, and Decarbonising Transport: Setting The Challenge.

To read and download the Catapult’s Net Zero Places Innovation Brief, which explores a number of new market opportunities in the active travel sector, click here.

The Active Travel Academy has co-authored a report out this month on the benefits of cargo bikes in London, which was supported by Pedal Me. You can download the report here.

To find out more about what we do at the Connected Places Catapult and to hear about the latest news, events and announcements, please sign up to our newsletter!

How does innovation happen in a place? What is it about a district, a neighbourhood, a cluster or a corridor that makes it possible for innovation to flourish? And what is the role of local authorities in curating innovation within and between places?

In the 2021 Budget, the UK Chancellor, Rishi Sunak MP announced a commitment “to stimulating private sector investment to create jobs, develop hubs of innovation, and revitalise local areas and regions across every part of the UK”. This was followed in July by the launch of the UK Government’s Innovation Strategy which aims to make the UK a global hub for innovation by 2035.

The innovation economy has become one of the defining features of the economic cycle, especially the role of innovation in the post-pandemic recovery and the wider ‘levelling up’ agenda. Yet there are stark differences between the innovation activity in different parts of the UK, and there is renewed focus on enabling the innovation economy to flourish right across the country.

This is the second episode in our Hubs of Innovation podcast series which began with two reports that the Catapult recently published, 1) Hubs of Innovation which looks at the role of innovation hubs in the COVID-adjusted economy, and 2) the accompanying Playbook for Place Leaders, a practical guide for how to establish or grow an innovation hub. In this episode we explore the role of local authorities curators in the innovation economy.

This episode is an edited version of an online event that the Catapult held on 20th July, 2021, “Local Authorities: Curating Places of Innovation”, which is also available to watch in full online.

Music on this episode is by Blue Dot Sessions and Phill Ward Music (www.phillward.com)

Show notes:

 Our Hubs of Innovation podcast series comes out of two reports that the Catapult recently published, 1) Hubs of Innovation which looks at the role of innovation hubs in the COVID-adjusted economy, and 2) the accompanying Playbook for Place Leaders, a practical guide for how to establish or grow an innovation hub. Both reports are free to download on our website.

You can register for our Innovation Places Summit on 23rd September, as well as our Active Travel Summit on 29th September.

If you'd like to get in touch with your feedback, comments and suggestions on what you'd like to hear more of on Connected Places, please email: podcast@cp.catapult.org.uk. We’re looking forward to hearing from you!

To find out more about what we do at the Connected Places Catapult and to hear about the latest news, events and announcements, please sign up to our newsletter!

Follow the show!

Don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Spotify and Google Podcasts. Please also take a moment to write a review and rate us so that more people can hear about the podcast and what we do at Connected Places Catapult. 

In this instalment of our City Leader’s dialogues, “The net zero road to COP26 and beyond”, we speak to the Leader of Manchester City Council in the north of England; one of the most important cities in the history of the industrial revolution and the story of modern Britain. For centuries Manchester has been a hive of innovation, and the urban and industrial technology that’s come out of Manchester has had a profound impact not just on the rest of Britain, but on much of the world.

Manchester is the home of the UK’s first canal and its first passenger railway. It’s the birthplace of atomic theory, the programmable computer and the world’s thinnest material, graphene. It’s a city defined not only by science and industry, but huge amounts of creativity and dynamism. So it’s no surprise that going back 150 years the much-loved symbol of Manchester has been the industrious worker bee.

And now, as cities around the world are adapting not just to the fourth industrial revolution but a rapidly changing global climate, Manchester is aiming to be a net-zero carbon city by 2038, 12 years before the rest of the UK. So in this second extended summer episode, we meet the Leader of Manchester City Council, Sir Richard Leese. Greg spoke to Sir Richard as part of the City Leaders dialogues that he’s holding in the run up to the COP 26 Climate Change Summit in Glasgow in November.

How is Manchester positioning itself for the monumental changes ahead; both the challenge of achieving net zero, but also the opportunities that digitisation is bringing to the city? What will a liveable, sustainable and thriving Manchester look like as we begin to recover from a pandemic? And how will the political leadership of this globally connected hive of a city, bring people along on the next phase of Manchester’s journey.

Music on this episode is by Blue Dot Sessions and Phill Ward Music (www.phillward.com)

Show notes:

To read our CEO’s recent blog on the role that innovation hubs can play in accelerating the UK Government’s ambition to level up the economy, click here.

You can register for the live City Leader Dialogues with the Mayor of Bristol, Mayor Marvin Rees on 7th September.

You can also register for our Innovation Places Summit on 23rd September, as well as our Active Travel Summit on 29th September.

If you'd like to get in touch with your feedback, comments and suggestions on what you'd like to hear more of on Connected Places, please email: podcast@cp.catapult.org.uk. We’re looking forward to hearing from you!

To find out more about what we do at the Connected Places Catapult and to hear about the latest news, events and announcements, please sign up to our newsletter!

Follow the show!

Don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Please also take a moment to write a review and rate us so that more people can hear about the podcast and what we do at Connected Places Catapult. 

Cities aren’t so much becoming smart, they’ve always been smart and the history of urban technology is often forgotten when it comes to cities. Yet even the most global and future-facing of cities are living legacies of long histories. Taking a long view of innovation can help us think more creatively in the present about the many possible futures that a city needs to prepare for. Whether it’s recovering from a global pandemic, responding to a rapidly changing climate, repivoting an economy to net zero, or improving the trust between city government and citizens, technology will play a defining role.

In this extended episode of Connected Places we explore what this means for one of the world’s most global and iconic of cities, New York, and few people are more qualified than our tour guide when it comes to understanding the role that urban technology has played, and continues to play, in New York’s story.

Rit Aggarwala has advised cities all over the world on urban technology and sustainable planning, including his hometown of New York where he played a key role in Michael Bloomberg’s administration when he was Mayor of New York. Rit is an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, and a Senior Urban Tech Fellow at the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute. He was also a founding member of the team that built Sidewalk Labs, an urban innovation company founded by Google. 

What’s so insightful about Rit’s reflections is that the story of New York is similar to the story of many other cities because the questions he’s grappling with apply to any city: How has technology played a role in the evolution of New York, what are the technologies that will most likely shape its future, and how is the city’s leadership preparing for that future? How do you ensure that all New Yorkers can participate in the digital economy? How do city leaders bring people with them in a time of growing mistrust in public institutions and concerns over privacy and civil liberties? And how consequential is the role of leadership, both political and business, in shaping the future of a city?

Music on this episode is by Blue Dot Sessions and Phill Ward Music (www.phillward.com)

Show notes:

To read our CEO’s recent blog on the role that innovation hubs can play in accelerating the UK Government’s ambition to level up the economy, click here.

You can register for the live City Leader Dialogues with the Mayor of Bristol, Mayor Marvin Rees on 7th September.

You can also register for our Innovation Places Summit on 23rd September, as well as our Active Travel Summit on 29th September.

If you'd like to get in touch with your feedback, comments and suggestions on what you'd like to hear more of on Connected Places, please email: podcast@cp.catapult.org.uk. We’re looking forward to hearing from you!

To find out more about what we do at the Connected Places Catapult and to hear about the latest news, events and announcements, please sign up to our newsletter!

Follow the show!

Don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Please also take a moment to write a review and rate us so that more people can hear about the podcast and what we do at Connected Places Catapult. 

How can cities strengthen their business cases for net zero investment? And if their plans are brought together and aligned in a new and creative ways, could they generate greater scale, volume and predictability in ways that might make them more attractive to investors?

To answer these and other questions, the Connected Places Catapult has teamed with a number of partners to create the UK Cities Climate Investment Commission. The aim is to the leverage the combined scale and clout of the UK’s cities to mobilise investment into low and net-zero carbon projects across all of the UK’s largest cities, not just individual ones.

As an initial step we have commissioned research to assess and analyse the low carbon investment that cities need, and the associated investment cases. The findings of the report will be launched at COP26 with a series of dissemination events being planned in the months leading up to November. The aim of the commission is to;

1. Support UK cities in achieving their carbon reduction targets, whilst developing a deeper understanding of the low carbon investment opportunities and challenges faced by UK cities.
2. Create increased confidence within the investment community in low carbon projects by leveraging the benefits of the scale offered through networks of cities rather than individual ones.
3. Provide the basis for engaging with industry on the opportunities for the supply and deployment of low carbon technologies into the marketplace.

This episode is a summarised overview of the work of the commission using audio from the launch event that was held on 1st July, 2021 chaired by Andrew Carter, Chief Executive of the Centre for Cities and attended by Prof. Greg Clark, Chair of the UK Cities Climate Investment Commission, Cllr Susan Aitken, Leader of Glasgow City Council, Niall Bolger, CEO of the London Borough of Hounslow, Rachel Dickie, Executive Director for Investment at Grosvenor Britain and Ireland, Shuen Chan, Head of ESG at Legal & General Investment Management (LGIM).

Music on this episode is by Blue Dot Sessions and Phill Ward Music (www.phillward.com)

Show notes:

To read the Joint Declaration of the UK Cities Climate Investment Commission on our website. You can also watch a recording of the launch of the Commission, which was held on 1st July, which included a presentation on the initial findings of the research report.

To read and download the Catapult’s Net Zero Places Innovation Brief, which explores a number of new market opportunities in the active travel sector, click here.

You can register for the live City Leader Dialogues with Sir Richard Leese, Leader of Manchester City Council on Monday 26th July, and Mayor of Bristol, Mayor Marvin Rees on 7th September.

You can also register for our Innovation Places Summit on 23rd September, as well as our Active Travel Summit on 29th September.

If you'd like to get in touch with your feedback, comments and suggestions on what you'd like to hear more of on Connected Places, please email: podcast@cp.catapult.org.uk. We’re looking forward to hearing from you!

To find out more about what we do at the Connected Places Catapult and to hear about the latest news, events and announcements, please sign up to our newsletter!

Follow the show!

Don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Please also take a moment to write a review and rate us so that more people can hear about the podcast and what we do at Connected Places Catapult. 

The physical and digital infrastructure that connects and powers our towns, cities and transport systems is something we don’t often think about until emergency strikes. Which is why in countries all around the world the COVID pandemic has refocussed our attention on the resilience and adaptability of our infrastructure. Yet ironically, how we design, build and invest in infrastructure is at the heart of the post-pandemic recovery. Even before COVID, the 2020s were set to become the most consequential decade in living memory for infrastructure investment, especially for new, low carbon technologies and the industries of the future as we re-pivot our economies towards new zero.

In this episode we look at the global investment patterns and infrastructure needs that will shape the coming decade, and the opportunities that digitisation brings in decarbonising our economies and achieving net zero carbon emissions. What might this mean for those larger connectivity projects like ports, airports and critical rail infrastructure? What’s the role of government and industry - where do public and private sector responsibilities lie? Prof. Greg Clark CBE, Chair of the Connected Places Catapult speaks to Nick Chism, an expert in the field of infrastructure investment and delivery.

Nick was Global Chair of Infrastructure, Government and Healthcare at KPMG, where he worked on infrastructure and new technologies in global markets across 120 countries worldwide. He represented KPMG on the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, the CBI Infrastructure Board, and at the World Economic Forum. 

More recently, he was Chief Business Adviser and Director General of Enterprise at the UK Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy where his portfolio overed business engagement, growth and investment. Nick is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales, an Associate Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers, and Executive Chair of IPFA, the global professional association for infrastructure and energy project financing. We’re also very lucky to have Nick on the Board of the Connected Places Catapult.

Music on this episode is by Blue Dot Sessions and Phill Ward Music (www.phillward.com)

Show notes:

If you'd like to get in touch with your feedback, comments and suggestions on what you'd like to hear more of on Connected Places, please email: podcast@cp.catapult.org.uk. We’re looking forward to hearing from you!

To read and download the Catapult’s Net Zero Places Innovation Brief, which explores a number of new market opportunities in the active travel sector, click here.

Our Connections Cafés are our series of SME innovation support webinars that explore developments and opportunities in the built environment and mobility sectors that enable new levels of physical, digital and social connectedness. Our next café is on the 14th July and will be focussing on knowledge exchange and collaboration between SMEs and Universities. You can register here.

We’re working with the Department for Transport, to help deliver their 2021 Transport Research and Innovation Grants for Zero Emission Flight. The department will be awarding a minimum of 12 funding grants of £50k to organisations doing R&D in this space, and on the 12th July we’re running a webinar that will provide further information, support and guidance to interested businesses You can register here.

To find out more about what we do at the Connected Places Catapult and to hear about the latest news, events and announcements, please sign up to our newsletter!

Follow the show!

Don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Please also take a moment to write a review and rate us so that more people can hear about the podcast and what we do at Connected Places Catapult.